Theology in the Raw - Living a Jesus Shaped Life: Lisa Harper

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

Lisa is a world renown speaker and writer with over 30 years of church and para-church ministry leadership experience. She holds a Masters in Theology from Covenant Theological Seminary and is pursuing a Doctorate in Ministry from Denver Seminary. She’s the co-host of the popular “Back Porch Theology” podcast and the author of several books including her most recent book: A Jesus Shaped Life: How Diving Deeper into Theology Can Transform Us and Our World with the Radical Kindness of God.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in Iran. My guest today is the one and only Lisa Harper. Lisa is a world-renowned speaker and writer with over 30 years of church and parachurch ministry leadership experience. She has a master's in theology from Covenant Theological Seminary and is currently pursuing a doctorate in ministry from Denver Seminary. She co-hosts the very popular Back Orch Theology podcast and is the author of several books, including her most recent book, A Jesus-Shaped Life, How Diving Deeper into Theology Can Transform Us and Our World with the Radical Kindness of God. Oh Nellie, you're going to love this conversation. As you'll see, if you haven't heard Lisa speak before, she is a very lively and dare I say, very raw and real and honest conversationalist.

And I just absolutely loved all that about her. And I think you will too. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Lisa Harper. ["The One and Only Lisa Harper"] Oh my word, Lisa Harper, I've been looking forward to this conversation and you are a very persistently requested guest for Theology in the Raw from people who support the podcast.

That's all my cousins. I sent out emails to all my cousins and said, Theology in the Raw is my favorite podcast in the history of time. So will y'all just hit them up and put your last name. I can't thank you enough. I told you off mic, I don't listen to a lot of podcasts, just busy life and trying to have my heart where my feet are being a single mom and my daughter's 15.

But I love, I learned so much from you, Dr. Pastor Shepherd Sprinkle. But the way you get me there, I'm always more infatuated and in love with Jesus than with what has been taught. And so, thank you for the way you shepherd us toward Jesus. Pete Well, hi. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I wanted to have you on, that I told you offline. not because you're a popular conference speaker, travel the world, speak to thousands, not because you're a popular

author, but because you are an extremely thoughtful person. I mean, you went to covenant seminary, which I know secondhand, that's a pretty academically rigorous seminary. And then you're pursuing a demon right now, right? Through Denver Seminary. You're going to be Dr. Lisa... Yeah, and it's chapter three of my thesis at Denver Seminary. And it has been, I am consistently in the bottom half of every class. I mean... Have you had, have you taken anything from my best friend, Joey Dodson? Dr. Joseph Dodson? I have not.

He, for whatever reason, he wasn't in the doctoral candidacy program. There were a lot of profs I wish I had taken, but you know, you don't have much electives in the doctoral program. And my main reason I went to, I mean, Holy Spirit, but I am a huge Craig Blomberg fan. I started studying Blomberg way back at Covenant when I was in my 30s. I'm 61 now. I thought 61 would be a scooter and a flag, so I'm so excited. I actually still have a little bit of... A scooter and a flag?

Yes. I was just sure of it. So anyway, I loved Dr. Blomberg in my very first class and Preston, I felt so, you know, I just thought, golly jeepers, I had kind of cheated on my exam to get into Denver Seminary because- We won't tell anyone. Because my background is masters of theological studies. They all know. I confess right away. I'm nothing if not honest. But because I don't have, I have just enough language to be dangerous, I had to do an oral equivalency exam. And so I had written notes, you know, what are the eight current views of atonement? And I was like, geez, Louise, I mean, this is some hard stuff.

And then a lot of Greek and Hebrew, of course. So I'd written notes just to jog my mind all over. And I live out in the boonies. So our internet is like two hamsters on a wheel. So I was in a friend's husband's office to have this oral equivalency exam. One of my profs was Lynn Kohick deciding whether I had the chops to actually make it in their doctoral program. And we get in there and it's just about to go on Zoom and I realized, oh crud, I left my glasses in the other room so I couldn't see any of my cheat sheets. And I realized, oh crud, I left my glasses in the other room.

So I couldn't see any of my cheat sheets. And I was like, oh, this is going to be a dumpster fire. And by the grace of God, they asked me things that I mostly could be coherent on. And I don't remember, there's one question that just completely stumped me. And I said, I have no idea. And I know better than to try to BS. It's for you, yeah. They'll sniff that out. I said, this is why I need you to mentor and teach me. But my first class was with Dr. Bromberg

and I thought I'm not gonna ask a question for at least an hour or two because I'll belie my own ignorance. And so I kind of waited and I thought I had this real punchy question like two hours into my first doctoral class. And I don't remember exactly what I asked, but I mispronounced, I said in the pericope, he was at the board, right? Something from the Septuagint. And he literally stopped and he turned around and he went, Lisa Harper, right? And I said, yes, sir. And he said, you do know

it's pronounced pericope. And I was like, no, sir. It looks like Periscope without the S. So it has been so much fun. But I think even the idea that theology is purely academic. I've loved unlearning some things I assumed about theology in the last four or five years at Denson. Where did your passion for theology come in? Is that a lifelong thing you've been into? Yeah, I think probably it was rooted in shame. Lots of abuse in my backstory. I would, as a young woman, use knowledge, what little bit I had or could plagiarize from somebody else, and humor as a smokescreen because I was afraid if you looked under the

hood of my life, you would be less than impressed or find me to be a fraud. Right out of undergrad, went into a ministry, moved to Nashville, Tennessee to work for a youth ministry, and immediately was surrounded by some lovely, very well-informed, reformed brothers and sisters. I thought, oh, I've got to study more C.S. Lewis and know how to quote from the Institutes or Augustine. And so, I just began accruing information, so I would look less like a fraud. But, you know, our God is so kind that even with my impure motive of just trying to gain knowledge so I wouldn't be exposed, He just

kept revealing Himself to me. You know, you can't study those doctrines of grace and sovereignty without being undone by the kindness of God. So, I don't think my motives were pure initially. The second go-round in seminary for my doctorate, I brought my little girl home from Haiti when I was 50. So, sorry, but for the women listening, I went through menopause and motherhood at the same time, Preston.

And Missy didn't speak any English and she was almost five when I brought her home. So I thought school was probably going to be a little uphill for her, at least initially. And I thought it would be so fun to sit at the kitchen table and do our homework together. And I believe we only see Jesus more clearly through this love letter we call the Bible and through Holy Spirit. So I thought I'll go back to school, not so much to pursue a doctorate, just to pursue more intimacy with Jesus. And so, that's how this last go-around in school started was just, of course I wanted to lean more fully into Jesus, and I loved to study. But I also believe very strongly that theology

was meant to be lived more than learned. So, it's been more, been as much a heart pursuit as it has been a pursuit of theology. When did you decide to write your latest book, The Jesus-Shaped Life, which is like, I mean, it's a down-to-earth, raw, punchy, very easy to understand, but extremely precise and careful book on theology. That's not everybody's cup of tea. What led you to want to do this book? No, it's not. I have a group of dear friends, they know where all the bodies are buried and they won't tell anybody, that I've been in a home Bible study with for 15 years. And when I would use words like hypostatic union, or you know, you just watch

their eyes roll back in their head, they would play us over and I was like, and I kept saying, y'all theology is not about accruing information about God, it's about intimacy with Jesus. And they'd be like, because I would just bore them to death and I'm a bit of a windbag. And I thought, how can we distill these foundational walls of our orthodoxy, not for people who aren't as astute, but for people who don't have this language, who don't have these semantics? What is it about the hypostatic union that is so unbelievable? Oh my goodness. And so it started really as a way to actually practice theology.

You know, Theos is God, logos is words or conversations. How can I have conversations with my friends and with people who don't yet know the unconditional love of Jesus about things that matter in ways that are accessible and not so lofty? And so, that's how it started. There's not a lot of books out there like this that are written with theological carefulness and depth in mind, but are very clear and accessible. I mean, there are scholars who have tried to do it, but as you and I both know, most scholars bless their souls.

It's hard for them to speak in common tongue. Well, present company with you excluded because you always helped me understand things. And I am so not a scholar, but I do think they're so much smarter than me. I'm an every woman and I've always been a storyteller. Now, I went through a season as a Bible teacher where I wanted to impress people. And I thought, I'm going to break down all the syntax and I'm going to give them social historical context. And I realized the reason I'm doing this is so they'll be impressed with me, not that they'll have a more intimate relationship with Jesus. That's

actually not my DNA. And so I need to leave that for the Dr. Blombergs of the world because that is his acumen. I thought, I'm a storyteller. And so, for me to be true to the personality God gave me, but to speak life, how can I do that in a way that's, that again is just authentic? I think I really love, have you read any of Dr. Bruce Demarest's stuff? Years ago, years ago. Yeah. He was, I didn't get to sit under him at Dinsim. He had passed before I started there, but he was a relatively renowned Old Testament

scholar. And then kind of like Thomas Chalmers, you know, hundreds of years ago, his wife invites him to go to this, I don't remember if it was an Emmaus Walker retreat, and he kind of inwardly rolls his eyes like, oh gosh, this is going to be so cheesy and so touchy feely. But he goes and he has this pretty radical encounter with God and realized that as a theologian who loved Jesus, he had gotten to the point of believing that experience and our hearts, he relegated those to probably a tertiary position in his life. And so, when I begin to realize that again, theology, if it was just creating a system to hang our thoughts about God on, then we might as well be pinning dead butterflies to the court board. Theology is meant

to be lived. And when I think about the hypostatic union, and I think this transcendent God condescends to be close to me, doesn't matter if you remember those words or can pronounce them. It does matter that you recognize at some level our Savior stoops to be with us, and He's no less divine, but that is the most beautiful juxtaposition that I could ponder that for the rest of my life and I think I would stay gobsmacked. I just want to be able to talk about those things with friends and again, with people who don't know Jesus because a lot of the people I get to rub shoulders with, I spend some time in the addiction recovery

community and their stereotype of a serious Christian is oftentimes that we are elitist, arrogant, unkind, stuffy people. When they go, oh my goodness, you explained the hypostatic union by how a woman got snot in your hair. I'm like, yeah, our Savior condescends to get the residue of our heartache on Himself. What a glorious fact that Jesus would stoop to that level and He's not deluding you. You can talk homo-o-ousis, I always mispronounce that one. Or you can go, we have a Savior who condescends to be close to us. What a kind God. So, I'm endlessly fascinated by who He is and how He reveals Himself to us. So, yes, that's theology, but it's more relational than transactional.

I think when people hear the term theology, they think, and you've already hinted at it, theological terms, hypostatic union. But if you just take the concepts that are kind of sometimes shielded by these terms, those concepts are life-changing, obviously, but beautiful and not always as complicated as some people assume they are. There's a mystery in the divine, obviously. But some things are made overly complicated by the terminology that has historically been used to convey those concepts. Right. Well, you know, when the man was healed and the Pharisees came to him, and of course there's good Pharisees and then there's Pharisees like me who can be real snotty and pose. But

when they tried to get him to give a thesis on his healing and he was like, I don't know. All I know is I was blind and now I can see. And again, I don't mean to be self-deprecating in a way that's distracting, but there are some things for anyone to say they can perfectly distill the Trinity in their mind, they're either lying or they've been hit in the head. There's no way to perfectly understand as a human, ontological equality. But to begin to understand our God chose to exist in perfect community and then He says, I've made you in my image. So we're not only a mago day, but we're hardwired for relationship. Then one of the points of that is belonging matters to our creator redeemer.

And I go, golly jeepers, you know, one of the things that came with the fall was loneliness. And the Trinity speaks to our loneliness. That is glorious to me. So yeah, I do think sometimes the verbiage can be more of a barrier than a bridge if we aren't careful. I feel like theologians are kind of like mechanics sometimes. Okay, so I'm a guy, you know, and so I'm supposed to know everything about cars and I go in, I know hardly anything about cars, but you know, I often, we drive these old beater cars and so on.

I'm in the mechanic like once a month at least with one of our cars. And I, you know, I feel so ashamed. Like they sit there and explain how this, I can't even remember the, they just use all these terms of what's going on in my car as if I know. Like if I knew I wouldn't be here, you know? And then, but then I feel so embarrassed. I'm like, oh, okay. So the, the rack wouldn't be here. But then I feel so embarrassed. I'm like, oh, okay. So the racket is pinging. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And the manifold is, oh, man.

Okay. So that sounds pretty bad. How much is it going to cost me? Right. No, I think that's such a good metaphor because I do, again, if I'm in an insecure place and not walk with Holy Holy Spirit, and I'm performing, then I will tend to throw out a few terms, you know, well, the hermeneutical spiral. And it's like, what do you mean? And I'm like, well, what I mean is God just keeps revealing himself more and more to me as I study this passage I've studied since I was a kid. I think if the goal is to love God and love each other, then semantics matter because we're, you know, there's concepts behind those words. But it's more about, it's always to me more relational.

It's always more about people than process. And it's always more about if I can't walk away from a conversation, some level caring for that person, then what I said was just noise. That's good. That's good. So you speak in front of, I mean, speaking in front of, I don't know how many thousands, hundreds of thousands of women. Millions, millions and millions and millions. How many countries?

The only reason I know is somebody asked me recently and I think it was 26, 26 or 27. 26 countries. This might be a cliche or might be my misunderstanding, but my perception of a lot of women's events are the topics are, there's two or three topics, how to be a better wife, how to be a better mother and how to battle anxiety or something, you know, like... Right. Right. Do you find that there is a hunger among women that...

Oh, yes. ...for understanding the practicality of the hypostatic union and so on? So much hunger. And I think especially when you put it in terms where women go, oh, this matters to me today. I love how Tilika says that good theology works at the messy margins of life. If it only works at the easy middle, then it's not a good theology. It's not a biblically informed theology if it doesn't work at the messy margins. And I think so many people are living in the margins pretending like they're

okay. So yeah, it's fine to have Pinterest women's conferences, I call them estrogen festivals. It's fine to talk about, to wrap something in an acrostic and some of that is just relating, but I'm 61 and not married. I didn't become a mom until I was 50 years old. We don't have a homogenous life for the American South.

I'm single. My daughter's from Haiti. She has some medical conditions. I rode a motorcycle forever because there's something about growing up half Baptist. We just have this longing to be clothed in black leather. I never really fit in any stream, it seemed like, of the church. I think most people feel that way. So, when you go, let's dive really deep into who our God is, how He reveals Himself to us,

what it means to live a Jesus-shaped life, what it means to actually be in love with Jesus, what it means that He is interceding for us every moment of every day with God the Father. What it means that you start diving into these things, and again, I mean, Preston, this is silly, but a couple of months ago, I was at a women's event. Most everybody was wearing like matching sweater sets and quilted Bible covers, and it felt it could have very easily been dismissed as just, you know, kind of superficial. It wasn't, but it would have easily been dismissed at that if you didn't stay till the end. And at the end, the woman who was running it, a friend of mine, said, you know, instead

of just talking about praying, we're going to actually pray about some things everybody's walking through right now and do it now. And actually, women from all different streams of church, and she said, so if you're struggling with loneliness, would you stand up? And I'm like, I love it when we own our stuff in them. Instead of go, I was lonely last year, but then I read Simon Chan and I studied the onto,

it's like, just say I'm dying today. I need somebody to take a corner of my mat today and carry me to the roof and lower me to Jesus because I can't carry the weight of my own life right now. Anyway, this woman stands up on the front row and she, I mean, it's like when she stood up the day I broke, she just began sobbing. And I thought, oh gosh, somebody needs to get to her because to be that honest in a group like this, but also to be that broken and that vulnerable, she needs to be

in, somebody needs to be the body of Christ now. She needs somebody, she needs the incarnation now of the body of Christ. So I just squeezed over to her and just at 61, I can hug and it doesn't make anybody feel weird now. It's like spiritual Nana. I'm surprised I don't smell like mothballs. And so I just grabbed this woman into a hug. And I mean, it, we are just, I mean, it's a full frontal because the event is packed. She can't back up. And then my back is against the platform. And Christy Knuckles, I don't know if you know Christy. Christy's just, oh, she's so lovely. But Christy's a little bit of an introvert, and Kristi's praying, and I thought it'll be like a three-minute prayer. Kristi's not like me.

She's not a windbag. And for whatever reason, Kristi prays for like 17 minutes. Well, after like four or five, it gets awkward. I mean, we're sweating on each other. We're both wearing sweaters. I'm like, oh, this is kind of weird. So I go to kind of tilt my head back just to use a little levity to go, I know you probably didn't plan and embrace this long in the sentiment.

Well, we both, as we kind of go to pull our heads back, both of us realize we can't move. We're just kind of glued together because of the logistics of the chairs and the stage. And both of us get tickled. And she goes, I'm sorry. And I went, oh, no, no, no, no. No, I said, you don't have to be sorry. This is what the body of Christ is supposed to be. There are seasons we mourn with those who mourn. I said, no, I'm just so honored. She goes, no, I'm sorry. And then again, I reiterate, no, it's such a privilege. I love

it when we get to be together when God's counting our tears. And she goes, no, I'm really sorry. And then she pointed to my hair and she goes, I just got a big glob of snot in your hair. And I got tickled. And it was quite the residue of her heartache. And then I had to go up because I was speaking next. And I just got tickled because I thought here I am with this woman's precious residue in my hair. It doesn't look like your speaker bio picture. That night I was kind of tickled.

I was washing my hair, of course. I thought, I think I've spoken at, I don't know, 50 something events this year. I've been on the road 150 days. I think the holiest thing I've done is be close enough to that woman that I got the residue of her heartache in my hair. And I thought that right there is the takeaway of the hypostatic union. It is not merely an academic concept. We have a savior who's perfectly transcendent, but he condescends to be close enough to get the residue of our heartache on him. The last thing he did for Judas was give him communion

and wash his feet. And so, when I make theology sound like an academic pursuit, shame on me. It's my insecurity because it's so much more about the kindness of God. This episode is brought to you by Mitopure by Timeline. Mitopure is the only urolithium-A supplement on the market that's clinically proven to target the effects of age-related cellular decline. So cellular health is the foundation of well-being and longevity and Mitopure gives you a precise dose of the rare postbiotic urolithium A. It works by promoting an essential cellular cleanup process that clears out dysfunctional mitochondria, which is like your cell's battery packs. And with regular use, you'll see and feel

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the women you're ministering to that they're experiencing higher levels of loneliness than before? You know, I don't know if it's that it is illuminated by social media, by this constant digital connection that that tends to... It's almost like how Christmas underscores loneliness because you see all the commercials and you're the only one who doesn't have matching sweaters and a gold doodle and you think I must be the only non-Norman Rockwell person in my neighborhood. Then you realize, oh, actually it just underscored where most of us feel like we don't fit. I don't know if it's the age we're in with the constant barrage of images and other people's curated lives that makes

us feel more lonely. I think loneliness came with the fall. I read a really interesting, a couple of years ago, I read someone's thesis on how what had exacerbated loneliness was when American architecture changed after World War II and we started doing garages that were attached to the house. Oh, yeah. So you can come and go without any access of neighbors. And I thought, oh, how interesting.

And I found myself paying more attention of when I come and go, how often am I actually engaging in community? Because if 98% of the biblical imperatives in the New Testament canon are set in the context of community, and our creator redeemer said, I'm in us, and I've made you in my image, then how am I missing out on what he has for me by isolating? So, I do hear it more. I would agree with your guest. It does certainly feel like it's at epidemic proportions. And I would say that's a common denominator of almost everybody I talk to. I love being at altars, just where people are praying. I'm telling you, Preston from, I mean, this weekend in Atlanta, I prayed with some women who look like they have it all together. I prayed with a kid, 22-year-old kid who's experienced some horrific loss in

the last year. She just wailed. The common denominator was, I feel missed. I feel like nobody sees me. And if they saw the real me, they would probably turn up their nose and disgust and walk away. And so I do think that it certainly seems to be more pronounced now than it was. Maybe I just was so self-involved that I didn't see it as much in my 20s and 30s. I certainly see it all the time now. What advice do you give to a 42-year-old mother of three, decent marriage, and just, you know that where you just kind of like, you're running, you're running, you're running, and then you just start to kind of just plateau and you're just going through the rhythm of life now. And it's just the things that used to be meaningful

just seem empty and you go to church and maybe you have a couple of casual conversations, you're hearing the same servants over, you know, you just, you get that just kind of like, okay, now what's going on? Like, is this what life is all about? I'm sure you experienced that a lot. What do you tell somebody?

Forgive me, this will probably sound pretty simplistic, but it's never the Greek or the Hebrew or some multislobic theological concept that gives me hope when I'm in those places, when I'm at the point of going, I just wanna come off the wall. You know, I'm in those places, when I'm at the point of going, I just want to come off the wall. You know, I'm just weary.

I don't want to do this anymore. Or is this, have I created more intimacy with God in even my own pondering and pursuing than is even accessible if I made some of this up? Because I certainly will sometimes go to some questions that are unhealthy questions. And it's always about the kindness of God for me. It's always the mercy of God that leads me to repenting my own, you know, my getting in a rote place or a numb place or a place of unbelief. And so, I have had the privilege of spending quite a bit of time with people who are in the recovery

family, who are in addiction recovery, and they will call me out if I'm being false in a heartbeat. I love that. There's something about being incarcerated for meth that just kind of peels off the emotional spanks. But I encourage them to get warm laundry out of the communal dryers they use there in a halfway house and put that laundry on their beds and to get warm laundry out of the communal dryers they use, they're in a halfway house, and put that laundry on their beds and lean into warm laundry because it feels like you're being held. And then to just pray kind of a simple confession,

Jesus, I need your grace to help me lean further and linger longer in your embrace. Real simple. And you know, some of my old seminary professors would call it isogesis because it's so much about us. But I think he accommodates sometimes my isogesis as holy and transcendent as he is. He knows where I'm weak. He brought Elijah snacks and let him have naps under the broom tree instead of eviscerating

him for his narcissism. And so, I'll say if you'll pray for Jesus to kind of take the scales off your eyes and ears and heart, that you would actually begin to remember his presence and how much we need that. And then, Song of Solomon wrecked my life in the most redemptive way because I am much better at being a dutiful Christ follower than I am in being delighted in. When I begin to see the Christology in the song and that the penultimate bridegroom, Jesus, says to me on my worst day, Lisa, with one glance of your eyes, you captured

my heart. Those things just cause my numbness to dissipate. I just find myself freshly, Matt Chandler calls it, re-gospeled by the compassion of a God like that, a God who would come close like that. So I think if you're in a numb place, it's almost like you would do in a, or at least I've heard this vicariously since I'm not married, 1-800-588- please call Lisa for a date. But my friends who've gotten into,

and it's not that either one of them is consciously kind of leaning away from that covenant of marriage, but it's just life happens and they're busy and they're running the soccer games and they're cooking dinner and they're I mean they're just they're just busy and then they'll go, oh my heavens, Betsy, we haven't had a date night in six months and you see this kind of this this renewed intentionality of we need time together. I need my heart and my feet to be in the same place with you. We need to look each other in the eyes and not just go over the family calendar. I need

to remember why I fell in love with you in the first place. And as tried as that can be, because that is a human romantic context, I have to get back to that with Jesus. I have to remember, oh, I remember the first time that I believed you knew my name, that you didn't just save me as part of a corporate church, but you know how many hairs are on my head. You saw me before I was formed in my mother's womb. And for me personally, it always goes back to, let me be regasped, let me remember, let me kind of figuratively touch the nail scars in his wrist and remember again,

he's not an existential construct. He's not a faraway deity. He is a Redeemer who became like us to save us. So, it's the simple things of the gospel that get me out of those places. When I'm tired or I'm weary or I'm selfish or pretentious. It's just spending time with Jesus. That's good. That's good. So you're on the road all the time. You said you spoke, wait, how many times this year? We're only in April. Oh, no, no, no. Usually I'm on the road. I'm trying to be on the road less because my daughter is 15 and I want her to love the

church. And so far she does and so far she loves to travel. But just some of the logistical realities of being old and being single and being a Bible teacher and having a 15-year-old daughter, you know, just trying to do that in a way that first honors God but also honors this amazing young woman. He allows me to be her second mom and his shepherd. It's messy, Preston. It's not simple. I can't wrap an acrostic around it. But right now, for the time being, I travel somewhere between 120 and 150 days a year. And part of that too is being a woman.

Because well, I won't even tell you where I am on the continuum. I'll say this, I'm delighted that there is a place for me to talk about Jesus in the body of Christ. Because when I was growing up, there were a few outliers, but you didn't see, and I thought I can't cross stitch, and I failed at piano lessons, so I don't have the domestic capacity to be a pastor's wife. And so, the fact that I get to talk about Jesus still slays me. I'm really, really grateful. But that does, for me, require travel to conferences and churches.

Pete What's the most, the biggest challenge to traveling that much aside from, like you said, you know, being there for your daughter and everything. And what's the greatest joy you get out of it? And I'm asking, I don't travel nearly that much, but there's, there's a tension. It's, it's physically demanding. And the older I get, the more I'm like, gosh, I flew on a plane. I feel like I ran a marathon, but it's just, it really does take its hole on you. But there is an exhilaration of meeting new people and speaking, you know, these moments like that woman that you hugged for a thousand years,

you know, like those are, those are just like, Oh, so life-giving. And yet they can also be equally exhausting. Even the good things can be exhausting. They can be. Sometimes, you know. Yeah. So anyway, pro biggest challenges. Pros and cons. Yeah. I think perspective is so important. Missy and I were at a Joyce Meyer conference a couple of years ago. There are a lot of women go to some of these conferences. You have thousands and thousands of women and they see your big old head on a LED screen and for 15 minutes, you have some stature.

After the conference, we're in a hotel with, I don't know, probably several thousand women that have been at the conference. Missy and I stepped off the elevator because we were going to get something to eat. When we stepped off the elevator, hundreds of women just began to cheer. You know how you're like, I mean, I thought, is Beyonce behind us on the elevator, hundreds of women just began to cheer. And you know, you're like, I mean, I thought is Beyonce behind us on the elevator? And then you realize, oh, they just saw my big old head on a screen and they're very kind, you're very, very honoring, but it is a little jolting. And so when we got back to the hotel room, Missy said, mama, are we famous?

And I said, no, baby, we're not famous. I said, we were having a plumbing little thing done on our house. We live out in the boonies and it's been a money pit. I have this log home. And I said, Remember those plastic pipes, those white plastic pipes that were leaning against the house when we left for the airport? And she goes, Yes, ma'am. And I said, Well, those are called PVC pipes. And I said, baby, on our best day, we're a clean pipe. And if God chooses to, living water flows through our pipe. And sometimes when people are really, really thirsty, and they get to drink that living water, they can't hang on to the water. And so they hug the pipe. So I said, on the very best day, we're a plastic pipe. And I

said, in some days, I'm a real gunky pipe and water doesn't flow through me. But people tend to hug the pipe because they can't, sometimes the water doesn't feel tactile enough. And I think if you remember, again, not to be self-deprecating to it to a point of distraction, but you remember he uses donkeys and rocks and you go, we get to do this. Then you realize the travel is exhausting. I get so sick of planes, trains and automobiles. If one more man takes my armrest, I'm going to punch him in the throat. I feel like I have this tattoo on my forehead that says, you're a very large man with very bad hygiene, sit next to me and take my arm rest. So, I definitely lose some of my Christoformity on the road. We're pressed in every single time. I mean, I think every single time I've had the undeserved

privilege of talking about Jesus. Somebody either puts their hope in them for the first time or somebody comes home after a season in the wilderness. I would walk to California for that. That makes me go, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true. The traveling gets exhausting. The commercialization, even though I make my living writing books and speaking at conferences, sometimes that wears me out. That can be really heartbreaking, the commercialization, even though I'm a part of that at some level. Sometimes that's real, just the transactional nature of it can be exhausting. The dog and pony show part of it can be exhausting. But when you see that the gospel is true, and when you see somebody's marriage restored, or they turn from darkness to light,

or they, you know, lay down an addiction and they lean into Jesus, that never gets old to me. Yeah, that's good. I've resonated with all that stuff. Yeah, the transactional, there's money involved. This is why I don't handle all my speaking to somebody else. Well, my wife does, and I have a board that sets price and stuff, and there's events we take that can pay well and others

will choose something for free, you know, just to do whatever. And then you have to battle too. It feels weird, doesn't it? Doesn't it feel weird to be paid? I feel so weird and sometimes it feels, ah, there's just such, it's almost solicitation. But then I go, the only way I've come to have peace with it, and this is probably really unhealthy, but I do go to therapy, so I'm getting healthier. The only way I really have peace with it is I'm like, they're actually paying me to travel.

Exactly. Because I will talk about Jesus anywhere I get to go. But to leave my home and to take my daughter out of school and to get on a plane and to leave for three days. Because the financial transactional part of it feels super weird. And honestly, I think it should feel weird. I think anytime we lose that tension, I think that's where we get in trouble. Yeah. Yeah.

So like if I speak, say I'm in Idaho, say I speak in the East Coast, even if I speak, usually when I go speak, I'm giving several talks, I'm doing a seminar and then talking to leaders. Even if I just spoke for an hour, it's like, well, that still took basically three days, 72 hours out of my life, family, and my normal rhythm of work. I have a full-time job on top of speaking, although the speaking is part of my income. So it's like, well, that's something. And then recovery and then the preparation and then just, yeah.

So I mean, you're not getting paid for the one hour of talk. You're getting paid for three days, three to four to five days of your life. So yeah, it's hard, but it will never be... I resonate with what you said though, that it should be, there should be a little awkwardness, it should be a little weird, because it is weird. I think there should be a healthy tension. When I was on a church staff, I was always aware of the fact that if I'm at Starbucks, my, you know, $45 coffee with cream and whipped cream and lavender and whatever I get, that's somebody's tithe.

And so I tend to be... Chris, our mutual friend, Chris Cain, just told me years ago, Lisa, you've taken a vow of poverty, God did not give you, because I had so much guilt over things like that. And so I do think the Lord continues to reveal where I'm bringing shame to the table instead of gratitude. But I never want to take for granted that somebody else's generosity allows me to get on a plane and talk about Jesus, because I have the huge majority of my friends are not in vocational ministry, and yet they're ministers in the New Covenant. But they're going to work as teachers, or they're going

to work as attorneys or dental hygienist, or they're at home with a whole past full of kids. And so, I just, I don't do hardly anything as well, Preston. I can hug like a boss, and I'm grateful. Those are really my only two high points. Yeah. You could literally hug a snot out of people apparently. Yeah, I can hug the snot. I probably paused it. I probably caused some kind of internal injury because I am like the effusive hugger.

It was probably all me that just forced it. I don't know. Do you, okay, so you primary, do you only speak at women's conferences? You speak at other places too, where it's mixed or? I used to only speak at women's conferences? You speak at other places too, where it's mixed? I used to only speak at women's conferences. And I want to be careful because I really want you to like me.

And I so consider myself a sprinkleite. So I don't want to get too deeply in the weeds. But I was pretty hardcore complementarian until 12 or so years ago-ish. Yeah. You were raised PCA, right? Well, my mom was Baptist to the bone, and then my dad started out as Nazarene, but he struggled with monogamy. And so he just ended up being kicked out of several churches and he ended up assembly of God, even though he wasn't demonstrative. So, I was pretty hardcore, Baptist, hostile. So, in other words, I didn't fit anywhere. And then I went to a PCA seminary. My first go around and worked in a PCA church. So, I became a Baptist, hostile, reformed girl. And I love so much of, well,

I love the doctrine of God's sovereignty and God's grace. There's some things I'm not sure. When people have a real certain eschatology, I'm like, really? Because Jesus said God hadn't told him when he was coming back. If you're going to buy lentils at Costco, I hope it's that you're making soup for the neighborhood because community is a real clear directive. There's cool things. I'm like, how arrogant for us to know that this is the only way.

As I begin sitting under saints like Dr. Blomberg and Dr. Howard and Scott McKnight and Lynn Kohick, I begin to go, wow, I didn't even know there was an option in understanding the socio-historical context and some of Pauline doctrine that has been taken to be one way with regards to women in leadership. I want to be very, very, very gentle and very soft. I do think if we aren't careful with anything where we've got a wound, if you lead with a wound, I think we get empowered and enraged, confused. Women in leadership is such a divisive issue. I have dear, dear,

dear, dear friends who are hardcore complementarian, and I have dear, dear, dear friends like Scott McKnight, who would be egalitarian. I think that scale tends to be a little narrow, which sounds crazy, as big as that continuum is. I want to be a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ. And as he has given me what I believe is some insight into some of what Dr. Kohik would call the clobber text in Pauline theology and understanding the Artemis cult, understanding a little more of the doctrine, even seeing that Paul, when he writes what we could argue is his magnum opus, the Book of Romans, he sends it with Phoebe. Really, there's a whole bunch of boys he could send with that, but Phoebe goes and gives

the letter and argues the theology in that letter. So, I think, Lord, I don't want to do anything that's outside of biblical parameters. But if you allowed Romans 16 to be in the canon and you allow Mary from Magdala to be the first witness to the resurrection and you allow Huldah to ratify the Word of God to Josiah, then whatever you put in my hands, I want to do that with devotion and with submission and with a soft heart. And so, I do now speak at churches on Sundays. I'm not a pastor. I'm always under the authority of whatever the leadership is at that particular church. But

I used to at Preston spend 20 minutes explaining that I was there under the pastoral authority, the authority of the elders. Now I'm like, you know what? If the leadership of this church trusted me for 35 minutes on a Sunday, I'm going to give the honor and the glory to Jesus Christ instead of tripping over myself trying to make sure everybody knows whatever their ilk is with regards to women in leadership, I don't offend anybody. There's people now that I've known for years that are now calling me a heretic because my stance on women in leadership has changed a bit. My orthodoxy is the last president at Denver Seminary, Mark Young came from Dallas Theological

Seminary. He calls it charitable orthodoxy. I love that. That's one of the things I love most about you and theology and the raw is your humility, your intellectual humility that you can agree on Christ crucified and resurrected. But when I've heard people on your podcast that you might not agree with every jot and tittle of them doctrinally, but you find a place to go, here's where we agree and where we disagree, let's make sure we handle that with respect, integrity, and humility.

And so that's where I want to be. So I probably do. My 12 minute answer to your question as I dance is I probably do about half and half, about half women's conferences or women's events. And then about half I get to be in some really amazing churches around the country and around the world. What if two hours could change your life? What if just two hours is all it takes to realize that God might be calling you to something more? What if two hours could shift your perspective and maybe even your calling? That's exactly what's

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just might change everything. You know, this is the, I've been working, finishing a book on women and leadership. It's been a three or four year project. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, I'm so excited. leadership. It's been a three, four year project. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm so excited! Why did you give me that? Because I'll borrow all your citations. My thesis is the theological anthropology of women. It is. I was going to ask you what you're writing your thesis. So, wait, theological anthropology of women. Yeah. Just studying, you know, I believe, my hermeneutic is real hardcore redemptive. And you see that's redemption from, you know, I believe my hermeneutic is real hardcore redemptive. And you see God's redemption from it. It's not just a New Testament theme. You see that all throughout Scripture. And

so I believe pretty strongly that misogyny, which has wounded so many men and women in the church, I believe misogyny is people in power structure. I believe if you really responsibly engage with Holy Writ, you do not find misogyny that's divinely authored. As far as function, that's a whole different thing. We can go in a million different directions there, but you do not see a hierarchy that's divinely authored based on gender. And so it's been really fun, even as I've studied passages, like Deuteronomy, the rape passage, Deuteronomy 22, and you go, my heavens to Betsy, that looks like a horrible Jerry Springer text.

Looks like she gets abused by this guy and then insult to injury, she has to marry her abuser. But when you get that ancient Semitic context and you get that God is actually kind of, Dr. Don Payne says it's like he's vaulting over the fence of culture. You begin to erect protection around his daughters when culture wouldn't you go, begin to erect protection around his daughters when culture wouldn't you go, oh, you know, you read Daughters of Zalophahat, 3500 years before women began to march to vote and God says, my daughter's voices matter, my daughters get to inherit. That shouldn't make us strident. That should make us grateful and kind. And there've been some times, I mean, my first, well, I won't tell you the ministry I was with, but one of my ministry jobs when I had tight skin and a high metabolism, I

was told that I could not wear open-toed shoes because the line between my big toe and my second toe was reminiscent of cleavage and it would cause men to stumble. What? That's a first for me. reminiscence of cleavage and it would cause men to stumble. What? And, Preston, I have never been the sharpest tool in the shed, but even then I thought- Reminiscent of your- My sandals are causing a man to sin. I think he's got bigger issues than my sandals. And so, all along the way, I have been blessed to tell me that because men were the glory

of God and women were the glory of man, if he paid me as much as he paid my male counterparts, then God would be displeased with him and would judge him. So he was going to pay me exactly half of what he paid my male counterparts. And if I had a problem with that, I didn't have a gentle and quiet spirit. So some of those things that have been wounding along the way, you go, okay. And a lot of times it was from well-intentioned leaders who were doing their best to rightly divide the Word of God, didn't have maybe the historical context for what was going on there and did just a plain reading of the text. So the older I've gotten, I thought, okay, God, if you give me the ability, I'd like to make,

I'd like the women behind me, the baby sisters behind me to have maybe a little less friction as they run towards you. And so how can I do that in a way that's encouraging, that's not divisive, that's gentle, and where I'm running as hard as I can towards you in a way that first honors you and then honors the people I get to rub shoulders with. So, you know, sometimes it's really messy. I can't wrap an acrostic around it, but I've had to unlearn some pretty bad theology.

Yeah. I think that Toe Police guy had a foot fetish. That's just my hunch. Yeah. That is crazy. I've heard, you know, obviously there's purity culture stuff. It's like, okay, your bra strap showing and it's going to turn out. Some of that's like a little silly, whatever, but it's like, at least that's in the purview of like a possible rational, whatever. It's at least three degrees separated of modesty. I mean, some of it you get in Toe Cleavage, I was like, yeah, I'm still not resonating with that one. But I mean, it is what it is.

And again, I don't want to be snarky or snide with that. I want to go where can I, the dumb stuff that's come out of my mouth, if I'm not walking with Holy Spirit, the first place I go is a critical spirit. And so I always want to go, okay, where were they wounded? What are they afraid of? And how can I be kind of more Christ-like instead of, I want to respond more than react. That's gracious. And sometimes I react too much.

Because all that stuff comes from somewhere, right? Everybody's got a story, somebody's got, it's not like just woke up one day and came up with toe cleavage or whatever. Oh, I mean, Preston, you should hear the things I get because I'm a single woman with a Haitian daughter and I get...-thwarted. What do you hear? Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. You thwarted God's sovereignty. You didn't trust God.

It's unnatural for an old white woman to parent a Haitian. Of course, Missy's first mama passed when Missy was a baby and had some pretty debilitating medical issues. And if Missy didn't have the meds available in her first world country, she was going to die in Haiti. It had nothing to do with her ethnicity. It's my gift that I get to be her second mama. It's God's grace. But it's been interesting how many people will call things out that I go, you don't know the whole story. And it's made me pause before I judge people. You see something on social media and you think you see the whole thing.

And I'm like, first of all, there's 700 filters over that. But second of all, get the context. And even then, my mom used to tell me when I was a kid, if you don't have something kind to say, then keep your mouth shut. And I think we opine way too much in our culture. I think the thing that really needs to be disciplined among many Christ followers is our thumbs. How do you, yeah. Do you, I mean, any public figure is going to get criticism. Do you get your share amount, I'm sure?

I'm too fat to be a Bible teacher. I'm a racist. I've exploited my daughter so that I would get a book deal. I'm a heretic. I had one woman tell me she was ashamed that her husband and I went to the same seminary. This was not Denver Seminary because I was such a heretic. She was embarrassed to say I went to the same seminary as her husband. So, oh, I get all kinds of stuff. I use pop culture references and I am such a, I'm so, I love the word of God. But sometimes, you know, I'll call Peter Peder and who knows what Jesus did. And I mean, I get ripped for, and you go, I'm sorry. I never want to offend just for the sake of offense. I was such a pleaser for so many years. I think when you, our child of divorce and sexual abuse, I just wanted people to like me. And so, I would

accommodate and lie and shape shift so people would like me. And so, I would accommodate and lie and shape shift so people would like me. And you get to the point of going, there's a huge difference between compassion and capitulation. And so, I want to be compassionate, but I don't want to capitulate because that's not even being respectful. And so, somebody, there's a lot of people don't like me. There's respectful. And so somebody, there's a lot of people don't like me. There's a woman who has an organization and for a while the main theme of her organization was to discredit me. It was Harper is a heretic. And so my publisher at the time said, Lisa, we would really like you to, I don't remember what, but it was basically re rebut this or refute this and I said no I said what she's saying is incorrect But I got a whole lot more bad stuff that I could tell her that's accurate

Where I've done some really dumb stuff or ungodly stuff So I just you know, I don't think you can come off the wall with that stuff we've got to be like Nehemiah and what he's called you to do your best to stay on the wall and Be kind and give an ear. And a lot of people who know me do. Chris Kane. Man, Chris loves me well, but Chris will call me on the carpet if I'm doing something that's ungodly.

I want accountability. But I think the best accountability is usually from people we're in real relationship with. Well, I was going to ask you, I mean, you kind of answered it, just how do you deal with all that criticism? I mean, it sounds like you... Sometimes I carbo load. I go and whine in case so. So sometimes I do that.

Then sometimes I go, you know, let me just try to be kind and be Teflon if they don't know me. And a lot of times I do say things that are offensive or incorrect. Our podcast, Preston, we have this podcast that we so want to be like you. We're a theology and the raw want to be. But we have a podcast called Backports Theology, and I would always break it down because I love to break down theology to theos and logos because that makes it much more accessible. It's God in conversations or phrases. Theology at its base is conversations about God.

For about a year, I said, you've got theos and you've got logos. Dr. Howard goes, you're using the wrong Greek letter there. I was like, excuse me? He said, it's not the chaos, it's theos. I was like, well, I'm glad I've said this on like 52 podcast. So, I mean, if somebody's going to mispronounce Greek or Hebrew, I will move first. And so again, I want to be as responsible as I can be, but you filter the mind of God through the mind and the mouths of mere humans, and it's going to get distorted. And so, I want to be able to say, as soon as Holy Spirit convicts me

of something that I'm saying wrong, or a brother, sister in Christ goes, hey, you're way off base there, I want to say, I am so sorry I was wrong. But you can't come off the wall for people who are slinging rocks from far, far away, or you never get back on the wall. Do you ever take time to respond and would you determine what to respond to and all the other stuff just like that? Not anymore. I used to. I may be wrong here, Preston, but I've found that if you don't have the basis of some relationship with someone, then to try to dive deep into a dialogue about something that matters is almost impossible because you don't know where the other one is starting from.

It's kind of like when I first played pickleball, I was terrible because I just didn't know where the lines were. I wasn't trying to smash people in the head. All I'd played was tennis. And so I think usually we have to figure out the court that somebody else is playing in and then you can step in. And I think that takes some measure of relationship. I always want to be kind and respectful to other image bearers.

But to have a deep dialogue, I think it usually takes some measure of relationship. It's hard. I'm battling that now. Once you start writing books, you're going to get criticized. Oh, sure. It's been a daily thing for the last 10, 15 years for me. But I would say in the last two years, it has significantly increased. And I take the approach of like, yeah, just not. Every now and then, if it's like a good faith, critical pushback that's thoughtful is humanizing and I'm like, oh, this is good for me to think through it. How would I respond?

Is there anything I need to change or repent from? But most of it's just slander, misrepresentation, half-truths, or just blatant. Or taking a minute snippet off an Instagram reel and wrapping it up. Oh, dude. Oh, oh. I'm like, that's not even... Yeah. I did actually, I've responded a few times to things like, I sometimes am not nearly as circumspect as I need to be in my words. And I tend to be pretty organic as a, I'll study,

but then I might take a rabbit trail that's redemptive or not. But I had said that God, we can't see the God of the Old Testament as a unibrowed librarian, just waiting to whack people over the head with a Bible if they step out of line. And I got a message from a librarian and she was like, you know, I just feel... But you know what? I thought, I didn't think about that. I am castigating librarians. And I've had fabulous librarians.

I loved a librarian at Denver Seminary. And I thought, you know, I need to be more circumspect. So some things you go, gosh, I'm so sorry. I misspoke there. So it's something like that. I want to own it. If it's something like I taught at a church recently and I was teaching on how, I was teaching on Ephraim and Manasseh and how, you know, Jacob crosses his arms and gives the second son the right hand of blessing.

And I love that theme you see through Scripture that God's family is not hierarchical, you know, there's no stepchildren, no second rest in his family. So I was taking that through to Romans 8, that if you don't get Ephraim and Manasseh and that consistent theme, you don't really get the beauty of Paul saying we're co-heirs. And anyway, this church I had been at posted a reel where I said, God plays favorites. Well, what I said after that was, and we're all it. All of us are his favorite. Well, because they just posted God plays favorites, there was quite a bit of pushback. And what it got to was, this is why you don't have women teach on a Sunday. She is totally taking God's word out of context.

That was the antithesis of what I was saying. I was using that to get to, he does play favorites and we're all in every single one of us as the apple of his eye. If you've put your hope in Jesus, but because they just aired that first part. A lot of times you go, you know what? We've got to have, my friend Allison says, we have to have a duck's back and a lion's heart. So the stuff that doesn't matter just needs to roll off our back. We've got to have a lion's heart to keep doing what he's called us to do. And in this culture where everybody can be a critic as if they have a phone, then to me, you've got

to have the wisdom to go, okay, Lord, if this matters, I want to be really open-handed with anything that Holy Spirit has convicted me of. If this is something that is misinterpreted or just somebody's lonely and they're mad. I remember one time, this was probably 10 years ago, Preston, a woman accused me of being, I've been accused of being a Jezebel multiple times. And sometimes it fits. But in this one particular occasion, I just noticed the woman seemed, I think anger is a secondary emotion. There's usually pain under anger.

And she just looked so sad. And I said, I'm so sorry, you ache. And I just hugged her. And I mean, that woman, all that anger just dissipated. And by the grace of God, I had guessed correctly, she was lonely. And she had just learned that to be oppositional got her attention almost like a little kid. And so I think if we can, if we can kind of hold our own reputations much more loosely than we hold compassion for the people we get to rub shoulders with, I think usually it works out. That's good. Goodness. Lisa, that's beautiful. I can't thank you enough for being on Theology Raw. I could talk to you for hours, but... Oh, I'm going to boast about it forever.

I'm getting a tattoo that says, I was on Theology Raw. We love you. Thank you for doing what you're doing, especially knowing, Preston, that any pushback you've gotten, I'll tell you from the cheap seats out here, you put so much wind in my sails. I can't even tell you. I'm so grateful that a man with your theological acumen has such a tender heart and you keep laying it out there for us. I need you to keep doing what you're doing. We're able to weigh out here, kind of keep rowing our ship because of the way you lead.

It's so encouraging. I really, really appreciate that, Lisa. Really do. I'm sorry. I'm this close to idolatry. I'll dial it back. But we are massive sprinkle fans here in Nashville, Tennessee. I appreciate it. Yeah. Okay. So your book is The Jesus Shaped Life. Encourage people to check it out. May 5th, I believe it releases? Early May. I can't remember when you said it. I thought I shouldn't have that. It's early May. Yeah. So people can go pre-order or order it and encourage people to check out all your other amazing resources at LisaHarper.org. So, really easy. Thanks again for being on The Algebra, Lisa.

I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Huge honor. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.